4 Tips to Help You Manage Your Online Reputation

It is crucial now more than ever that you properly manage your online reputation – everyone can see everything.

With the advent of social media in the business world, it has never been more important to keep an eye on and properly manage your online reputation. 140 characters may seem short, but that is all it takes to start a PR crisis that quickly spirals out of control.

Not long ago, we posted an infographic with plenty of information on the importance of monitoring and managing your online reputation. There were some important stats in the infographic. Most crucial was the fact that 70% of consumers trust brand recommendations from their friends and family, and a whopping 92% of consumers trust reviews they read online from former customers. That’s a substantial majority.

So how can you manage your online reputation and build your business? The four tips below should always be kept in mind when it comes to online reputation management.

Engage in Conversations

When people are talking about your brand, talk with them. Don’t let the conversations take place about you without showing your engaged audience that you are listening. This will accomplish two things: it will show those conversing that you care and show the same to onlookers.

Handle Every Crisis

As we noted above, one 140-character message can mean a major dent in your business. You don’t want to let anything get out of control, because in the world of social media, it is much harder to deal with the ripple effect than to deal with the one disgruntled customer.

Offer Social Care

Social Care is the new concept of offering customer service on social media channels. Currently, according to a study by Nielsen and NM Incite, one-third of online adults prefer Social Care to conventional approaches (i.e. phone). That may sound like a minority, but that’s a huge group of people!

By offering an additional service that helps your customers, you will gain an edge over your competitors, and it will certainly help build up your reputation. Just be sure to answer customers when they reach out to you!

Follow Your Brand

There are free listening tools like SocialMention and BackTweets, and high-end, highly technical, highly pricey listening tools like Crimson Hexagon and Sysomos that you should be using to listen for brand mentions. You’d be surprised at where your brand is being discussed, and you want to be abreast of what’s going on.

Using listening tools always provides you with the added option of dealing with issues that you may not have known about (i.e. extensions to your Social Care model) and can also provide you with valuable insights as to what your customers want and how you can improve your business and services.

There are several ways to go about monitoring and managing your online reputation. Putting these tips into practice is great way to start.

Do you engage in some for of online reputation management? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!